Summer 2014 DC tour: Giselle (Grigorovich)

We finally know what the Bolshoi Ballet will be performing in DC next summer: Giselle. (Giselle also being performed by the Washington Ballet earlier in the season....so 'meh.') Well, at least there's a small chance that we might see Obraztsova in the lead.

This wasn't written by AM. I pointed out these 2 mistakes in a post in the comment section, and the underling who wrote up the item thanked me for the corrections. You will see the corrections now appear at the end of the item.

Russian companies do use Hans instead of Hilarion. At least the Mariinsky does, and it looks like the Bolshoi does too. I think the Bolshoi has two versions of Giselle also.

Exactly. The Grigorovich version is performed at the main theater--and fetches 9,000 RUB for orchestra tickets--while the Vasiliev version continues to be performed at the new theater--for the comparative bargain price of 4,000 RUB. In photos they're easy enough to tell apart because in Grigorovich's version Giselle wears a white and blue dress in Act 1, while she is dressed in a yellow skirt in Vasiliev's production. (The latter is more historically accurate, since blue dye was outrageously expensive in the old days, though the traditional blue dress helps the character stand out on stage.) It so happens that the Kennedy Center has posted photos primarily from the Vasiliev production, but the site, as noted, is pretty sloppy with these things; at least the typing errors seem to have been corrected.

Most Russian productions call the gamekeeper Hans (or Gans in Russian). Vasiliev's production is one of the few to call him Hilarion (Illarion in Russian).